The Moonstone by Wilkie Collins (top 5 books to read .txt) đ
- Author: Wilkie Collins
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Finding myself alone with Lady Verinder, I turned naturally to the subject of her health; touching delicately on the strange anxiety which she had shown to conceal her indisposition, and the remedy applied to it, from the observation of her daughter.
My auntâs reply greatly surprised me.
âDrusilla,â she said (if I have not already mentioned that my Christian name is Drusilla, permit me to mention it now), âyou are touching quite innocently, I knowâon a very distressing subject.â
I rose immediately. Delicacy left me but one alternativeâthe alternative, after first making my apologies, of taking my leave. Lady Verinder stopped me, and insisted on my sitting down again.
âYou have surprised a secret,â she said, âwhich I had confided to my sister Mrs. Ablewhite, and to my lawyer Mr. Bruff, and to no one else. I can trust in their discretion; and I am sure, when I tell you the circumstances, I can trust in yours. Have you any pressing engagement, Drusilla? or is your time your own this afternoon?â
It is needless to say that my time was entirely at my auntâs disposal.
âKeep me company then,â she said, âfor another hour. I have something to tell you which I believe you will be sorry to hear. And I shall have a service to ask of you afterwards, if you donât object to assist me.â
It is again needless to say that, so far from objecting, I was all eagerness to assist her.
âYou can wait here,â she went on, âtill Mr. Bruff comes at five. And you can be one of the witnesses, Drusilla, when I sign my Will.â
Her Will! I thought of the drops which I had seen in her work-box. I thought of the bluish tinge which I had noticed in her complexion. A light which was not of this worldâa light shining prophetically from an unmade graveâdawned on my mind. My auntâs secret was a secret no longer.
Consideration for poor Lady Verinder forbade me even to hint that I had guessed the melancholy truth, before she opened her lips. I waited her pleasure in silence; and, having privately arranged to say a few sustaining words at the first convenient opportunity, felt prepared for any duty that could claim me, no matter how painful it might be.
âI have been seriously ill, Drusilla, for some time past,â my aunt began. âAnd, strange to say, without knowing it myself.â
I thought of the thousands and thousands of perishing human creatures who were all at that moment spiritually ill, without knowing it themselves. And I greatly feared that my poor aunt might be one of the number. âYes, dear,â I said, sadly. âYes.â
âI brought Rachel to London, as you know, for medical advice,â she went on. âI thought it right to consult two doctors.â
Two doctors! And, oh me (in Rachelâs state), not one clergyman! âYes, dear?â I said once more. âYes?â
âOne of the two medical men,â proceeded my aunt, âwas a stranger to me. The other had been an old friend of my husbandâs, and had always felt a sincere interest in me for my husbandâs sake. After prescribing for Rachel, he said he wished to speak to me privately in another room. I expected, of course, to receive some special directions for the management of my daughterâs health. To my surprise, he took me gravely by the hand, and said, âI have been looking at you, Lady Verinder, with a professional as well as a personal interest. You are, I am afraid, far more urgently in need of medical advice than your daughter.â He put some questions to me, which I was at first inclined to treat lightly enough, until I observed that my answers distressed him. It ended in his making an appointment to come and see me, accompanied by a medical friend, on the next day, at an hour when Rachel would not be at home. The result of that visitâmost kindly and gently conveyed to meâsatisfied both the physicians that there had been precious time lost, which could never be regained, and that my case had now passed beyond the reach of their art. For more than two years I have been suffering under an insidious form of heart disease, which, without any symptoms to alarm me, has, by little and little, fatally broken me down. I may live for some months, or I may die before another day has passed over my headâthe doctors cannot, and dare not, speak more positively than this. It would be vain to say, my dear, that I have not had some miserable moments since my real situation has been made known to me. But I am more resigned than I was, and I am doing my best to set my worldly affairs in order. My one great anxiety is that Rachel should be kept in ignorance of the truth. If she knew it, she would at once attribute my broken health to anxiety about the Diamond, and would reproach herself bitterly, poor child, for what is in no sense her fault. Both the doctors agree that the mischief began two, if not three years since. I am sure you will keep my secret, Drusillaâfor I am sure I see sincere sorrow and sympathy for me in your face.â
Sorrow and sympathy! Oh, what Pagan emotions to expect from a Christian Englishwoman anchored firmly on her faith!
Little did my poor aunt imagine what a gush of devout thankfulness thrilled through me as she approached the close of her melancholy story. Here was a career of usefulness opened before me! Here was a beloved relative and perishing fellow-creature, on the eve of the great change, utterly unprepared; and led, providentially led, to reveal her situation to Me! How can I describe the joy with which I now remembered that the precious clerical friends on whom I could rely, were to be counted, not by ones or twos, but by tens and twenties. I took my aunt in my armsâmy overflowing tenderness was not to be satisfied, now, with anything less than an embrace. âOh!â I said to her, fervently, âthe indescribable interest with which you inspire me! Oh! the good I mean to do you, dear, before we part!â After another word or two of earnest prefatory warning, I gave her her choice of three precious friends, all plying the work of mercy from morning to night in her own neighbourhood; all equally inexhaustible in exhortation; all affectionately ready to exercise their gifts at a word from me. Alas! the result was far from encouraging. Poor Lady Verinder looked puzzled and frightened, and met everything I could say to her with the purely worldly objection that she was not strong enough to face strangers. I yieldedâfor the moment only, of course. My large experience (as Reader and Visitor, under not less, first and last, than fourteen beloved clerical friends) informed me that this was another case for preparation by books. I possessed a little library of works, all suitable to the present emergency, all calculated to arouse, convince, prepare, enlighten, and fortify my aunt. âYou will read, dear, wonât you?â I said, in my most winning way. âYou will read, if I bring you my own precious books? Turned down at all the right places, aunt. And marked in pencil where you are to stop and ask yourself, âDoes this apply to me?ââ Even that simple appealâso absolutely heathenising is the influence of the worldâappeared to startle my aunt. She said, âI will do what I can, Drusilla, to please you,â with a look of surprise, which was at once instructive and terrible to see. Not a moment was to be lost. The clock on the mantel-piece informed me that I had just time to hurry home; to provide myself with a first series of selected readings (say a dozen only); and to return in time to meet the lawyer, and witness Lady Verinderâs Will. Promising faithfully to be back by five oâclock, I left the house on my errand of mercy.
When no interests but my own are involved, I am humbly content to get from place to place by the omnibus. Permit me to give an idea of my devotion to my auntâs interests by recording that, on this occasion, I committed the prodigality of taking a cab.
I drove home, selected and marked my first series of readings, and drove back to Montagu Square, with a dozen works in a carpet-bag, the like of which, I firmly believe, are not to be found in the literature of any other country in Europe. I paid the cabman exactly his fare. He received it with an oath; upon which I instantly gave him a tract. If I had presented a pistol at his head, this abandoned wretch could hardly have exhibited greater consternation. He jumped up on his box, and, with profane exclamations of dismay, drove off furiously. Quite useless, I am happy to say! I sowed the good seed, in spite of him, by throwing a second tract in at the window of the cab.
The servant who answered the doorânot the person with the cap-ribbons, to my great relief, but the foot-manâinformed me that the doctor had called, and was still shut up with Lady Verinder. Mr. Bruff, the lawyer, had arrived a minute since and was waiting in the library. I was shown into the library to wait too.
Mr. Bruff looked surprised to see me. He is the family solicitor, and we had met more than once, on previous occasions, under Lady Verinderâs roof. A man, I grieve to say, grown old and grizzled in the service of the world. A man who, in his hours of business, was the chosen prophet of Law and Mammon; and who, in his hours of leisure, was equally capable of reading a novel and of tearing up a tract.
âHave you come to stay here, Miss Clack?â he asked, with a look at my carpet-bag.
To reveal the contents of my precious bag to such a person as this would have been simply to invite an outburst of profanity. I lowered myself to his own level, and mentioned my business in the house.
âMy aunt has informed me that she is about to sign her Will,â I answered. âShe has been so good as to ask me to be one of the witnesses.â
âAye? aye? Well, Miss Clack, you will do. You are over twenty-one, and you have not the slightest pecuniary interest in Lady Verinderâs Will.â
Not the slightest pecuniary interest in Lady Verinderâs Will. Oh, how thankful I felt when I heard that! If my aunt, possessed of thousands, had remembered poor Me, to whom five pounds is an objectâif my name had appeared in the Will, with a little comforting legacy attached to itâmy enemies might have doubted the motive which had loaded me with the choicest treasures of my library, and had drawn upon my failing resources for the prodigal expenses of a cab. Not the cruellest scoffer of them all could doubt now. Much better as it was! Oh, surely, surely, much better as it was!
I was aroused from these consoling reflections by the voice of Mr. Bruff. My meditative silence appeared to weigh upon the spirits of this worldling, and to force him, as it were, into talking to me against his own will.
âWell, Miss Clack, whatâs the last news in the charitable circles? How is your friend Mr. Godfrey Ablewhite, after the mauling he got from the rogues in Northumberland Street? Egad! theyâre telling a pretty story about that charitable gentleman at my club!â
I had passed over the manner in which this person had remarked that I was more than twenty-one, and that I had no pecuniary interest in my auntâs Will. But the tone in which he alluded to dear Mr. Godfrey was too much for my forbearance. Feeling bound, after what had passed in my presence that afternoon, to assert the innocence of my admirable friend, whenever I found it called in questionâI own to having also felt bound to include in the accomplishment of this righteous purpose, a stinging castigation in the case of Mr. Bruff.
âI live very much out of the world,â I said; âand I donât possess the advantage, sir, of belonging to a club. But I happen to know the story to which you allude; and I also know that a viler falsehood than that story never was told.â
âYes, yes, Miss Clackâyou believe in your friend. Natural enough. Mr. Godfrey Ablewhite, wonât find the world in general quite so easy to convince as a committee of
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